Electrical matrix with improved frame and plug structure



April 30, 1968 R. J. UHL 3,381,179

ELECTRICAL MATRIX WITH IMPROVED FRAME AND PLUG STRUCTURE Filed April 9, 1966 5 Sheets-Sheet l 0-70" $19.1 OIOIOIOIOI 3 0E5 TINA r/o/v a2- RECOGNITION -v--- 0071 07 2/- v K 38 CONTROL 20 V jLLHLLLL O lOl l J.

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OIOIOIOIOI ORTINEMATR I @XLLL u u Lu fL'V' INVENTOR-I'X ROBERT J, UHL

B Alfil-IABET/E MATRIX 14 I AT'I'O NE Y April 30, 1968 R. J. um. 3,381,179

ELECTRICAL MATRIX WITH IMPROVED FRAME AND PLUG STRUCTURE Filed April 29, 1966 5 Sheets-Sheet BANKS INVENTOR.

ROBERT J. (ll/L ATTORNEY April 30, 1968 R. J. UHL 3,381,119

ELECTRICAL MATRIX WITH IMPROVED FRAME AND PLUG STRUCTURE 3 SheetsSheet 3 Filed April 29, 1966 INVENTOR.

ROBERT J. UHL

ATTOR EY United States Patent 3,381,179 ELECTRICAL MATRIX WITH IMPROVED FRAME AND PLUG STRUUTURE Robert J. Uhl, Wayne, N.J., assignor to International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, Nutley, N.J.,

a corporation of Maryland Filed Apr. 29, 1966, Ser. No. 546,335 2 Claims. (Cl. 317-101) ABSTRACT 0F THE DISCLOSURE A matrix frame and plug structure is provided wherein a curved component-bearing plug is insertable into cavities in the matrix frame so that the curved plug exerts pressure on the cavity walls to assure electrical connection between the component leads and conductive cavity strips.

This invention relates to variable electrical matrices and especially to diode matrices which may be selectively arranged to provide a plurality of interconnected AND gates and OR gates in a compact space.

One of the objects of the invention is to provide a variable electrical matrix having a compact frame with a plurality of cavities and a plurality of plugs which can be inserted selectively into said cavities and which contain electrical elements for producing various gating combinations.

Another object of the invention is to provide a variable electrical matrix having a frame with a plurality of cavities, each of which is provided with a plurality of conductive strips spaced longitudinally of the cavity, and a plurality of plugs insertable selectively into said cavities, said plugs carrying electrical elements and being provided with differently positioned contacts on the side thereof to engage selected ones of the conductive strips when said plugs are inserted in the cavities.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a variable diode matrix having a frame provided with a plurality of cavities having spaced conductive strips on the interior walls thereof and a plurality of plugs with contacts at different longitudinal positions on the surface of the plug so as to engage selected ones of said conductive strips when the plug is inserted in a cavity, certain of said plugs containing diodes and certain containing resistors, whereby different combinations of gating circuits and interconnections thereof may be obtained by inserting different combinations of plugs.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a variable electrical matrix having cavities and insertable plugs in which both AND and OR gates may be obtained with plugs containing similarly poled diodes, thus necessitating a minimum of different plugs.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a circuit diagram showing the electrical interconnections of a sorting matrix with an aliphabet matrix which represents the type of circuit which can be obtained with the variable electrical matrix of the invention;

FIGURE 2 is an isometric view of the matrix frame of the invention with one of the plugs inserted;

FIGURES 3a and 3b are isometric views of one of the plugs; and

FIGURE 4 is a partial schematic view of the component layout within the matrix frame for part of the circuit of FIGURE 1.

The objects of the invention are accomplished by means of a matrix frame of insulating material with a plurality of elongated cavities, the inner walls of each cavity being provided with a plurality of spaced conductors. A plurality of plugs are provided which may be selectively in- 3,381 ,179 Patented Apr. 30, 1968 "ice serted in the cavities, each plug containing an electrical component and contacts arranged in different positions on the side thereof, so that they may engage predetermined ones of the spaced conductors when the plug is inserted in the cavity, thereby building up the circuit.

Referring now more specifically to the drawings, the circuit diagram of FIGURE 1 shows one example of a family of gating circuits with the interconnections which may easily be constructed by means of the variable electrical matrix of the invention. The circuit comprises an alphabet matrix 1 having five sets of diode gates 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, each set having 26 output leads 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, representing the letters of the alphabet, as indicated. Each letter in this circuit is produced by a five element code from five sets of flip-flop circuits 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.

The set 2 of diodes is shown more in detail, while the other sets, being quite similar, are merely indicated. The flip-flop circuits 12 for this set of gates are shown as squares each with outputs labelled binary 0 and 1. Selected ones of these outputs are led to an AND gate for each letter of the alphabet. Thus, the AND gate 17 for the letter A comprises five diodes 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22. The 0 output of the first flip-flop circuit is connected to the diode 18; the 0 output of the second flip-flop circuit is connected to the diode 19; the 0 output of the third flip-flop circuit is connected to the diode 20; the 1 output of the fourth flip-flop circuit is connected to the diode 21; and the "1 output of the fifth flip-flop circuit is connected to the diode 22. The other terminals of the diodes are connected to the output representing the letter A and are also connected to one end of a resistor 23 whose other end is connected to a negative potential of 10 volts.

With the diode poles as indicated, so that current can pass from the flip-flop circuits towards the potential source, essentially ground potentials are normally applied to the 0 flip-flop outputs. As long as any one of the outputs connected to the diodes 18 to 22 is grounded, the output of the gate is essentially grounded, owing to the drop in potential through the resistor 23. When these outputs are all made negative, representing the binary number 00011, the gate 17 operates to make the output negative and thus the letter A is indicated.

Similarly, the letter B is indicated by the gate circuit 24 when the binary number 11001 is produced by the flip-flop circuits 12. And the letter N is produced by the gate circuit 25 when the binary number 01100 is produced by the flip-flop circuits 12. Other letters for this first set 2 of gates are indicated by other code combinations of the flip-flop circuits 12.

Similarly the alphabetical outputs of the other gating circuits 3, 4, 5, and 6 are energized by suitable code combinations from the associated flip-flop circuits.

The circuit of FIGURE 1 also shows a sorting matrix 27 comprising a set 28 of destination recognition gates and a set 29 of output control gates.

The destination recognition gates comprise sets of gates 30 and 31, shown in detail, and other gates 32, the numher being dependent on the number of code names to be produced. The gate set 28 comprises five diodes 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37 which are connected respectively to the outputs 7, 8, 9, 1t), and 11 from the alphabet gating circuits. Thus, the diode 33, in the arrangement shown, is connected to the output representing the letter N from the first set of gate outputs 7; the diode 34 is connected to the output representing the letter T from the second set 8; the diode 35 is connected to the output representing the letter L from the set 9; the diode 36 is connected to the output representing the letter E from the set 10; and the diode 37 is connected to the output from the set 11 representing the letter Y. The other terminals of the diodes 33 to 37 are connected together and to the output for the gate and also through a resistor 38 to a potential of volts negative. When all of the diodes 33 to 37 are poled, as shown, and are supplied with a negative potential from the flip-flops, a negative potential from the source through the resistor 38 appears to indicate a particular code name.

The output control gates 29 are OR gates and are arranged similarly to the gates already described, except that the diodes are reversed in polarity and the outputs 39 are connected to ground through resistors 40. When any one of the code name outputs from gates 28 assumes a negative potential, the corresponding output 39 becomes negative to indicate the receipt .of the code word.

FIGURE 2 is an isometric view of a matrix frame in which all of the gating components of matrix 27 of FIG- URE 1 can be compactly arranged in such a manner as to permit changing the code names and the connections as desired.

Preferably the matrix frame is in the form of a block of insulation having cavities into which plugs may be selectively inserted for making different connections so as to construct a gating circuit of the type described in connection with FIGURE 1. Such a block may be conveniently formed by securing a plurality of rectangular plates 41 in parallel, spaced relation with elongated spacers 42 of uniform thickness separating the plates and extending parallel with each other across the plates to form the cavities 43. The plates 41 and spacers 42 are made of electrically insulating material, such as polystyrene .or other suitable material. The frame may be held together in any desirable manner, as by means of the rods 44 at the corners provided with suitable securing nuts 45.

Each of the plates 41 may be provided with a plurality of conductors 46 extending in parallel, spaced relation longitudinally of the plate and beginning at one edge thereof, there being sufficient number to satisfy all the characters out of which the name codes are to be formed. For the circuit illustrated, there are 26 of these conductors in a group beginning near one edge and representing the letters A to Z. These conductors may preferably be printed on the surface of the plate or they may be embedded or otherwise attached to the surface. Each plate may be provided with these conductors, although they may not all be used in a particular circuit, and the conductors may be on each side of the plates. For the case of 26 conductors representing the letters A to Z, only 13 conductors need be on each side of plate 41. The full complement of 26 characters is still available as will be described later in the description of plugs to be inserted into the matrix cavities.

In addition to the conductors referred to above, each plate is provided with a row of holes 47 spaced from the opposite edge of the plate, the holes being uniformly spaced so as to align with the cavities 43. Conductors 48 extend through these holes, and thus each code bank of cavities consisting of the same numbered cavity in successive rows lengthwise of the plates has a conductor extending through it. Each of the plates also has a short conductor 49 extending from each hole 47 therein towards the conductors 46 and perpendicular thereto. These short conductors may also be printed on the plates or otherwise attached or embedded therein and have electrical contact with the respective conductors 48. Such techniques as soldering, mating taper pin assemblies or other contacting methods may be utilized to fabricate the conductors 48.

For constructing the circuit shown in FIGURE 1, seven rows of cavities will be sufficient with thirty cavities in each row. The first five rows from the left in FIGURE 2 are the code banks, each bank containing similarly numbered cavities in the five rows and adapted to receive five plugs representing letters for producing an AND gate sensitive to a particular five letter code word. Rows six and seven of the cavities are the control banks which receive plugs for providing the power supply and the OR gates, as will be described hereinafter.

The cavities 43 in the matrix frame are adapted to receive plugs 50, one of which is shown in the isometric drawings of FIGURE 3. Each of these plugs comprises a bar, preferably of the same material as the plates 41 and having substantially the same cross section as the cavities 42. The plugs may be slightly different in cross section from the cross section of the cavities, so that they will be slightly deformed by inserting them, whereby they will be held in place by friction. Any other arrangement for holding them in place may be used, if desired.

In one embodiment each plug carries an electrical component in a hole 51 extending through the plug near the lower end thereof. In the plug shown in FIGURE 3a, this component is illustrated as a diode 52, although in constructing the particular circuit of FIGURE 1, resistors are mounted in the holes of some of the plugs.

A conducting strip 53 is printed or embedded crosswise on the side of the plug at such a position that it will engage a particular one of the conductors 46 of a cavity when the plug is inserted therein. A groove 54 is provided in the plug on the side of the strip 53 extending longitudinally of the plug from the conducting strip 53 to the hole 51, and a wire 55, connecting the strip 53 with the diode 52, is secured in the groove, as by cementing it herein.

Another conducting strip 56 is printed or otherwise secured crosswise of the plug just below the hole 51, and a groove 57 leads from the hole 51 to the strip 56 with a Wire 58 cemented or otherwise secured therein to connect the other terminal of the diode with the strip 56.

With the arrangement shown, connection is 'made through the diode 52 from one of the conductors 46 in the side wall of the cavity into which the plug 50 is inserted and the short conductor 49 at the bottom of that cavity which in turn connects with the conducting rod 48 extending through that and the other cavities in the bank to which that cavity belongs. It will be seen that the position of the conducting strip 53 on the side of the plug will determine to which conductor 46 the diode of the plug is connected. By positioning the conducting strips at different levels on different plugs, each plug may be made a different part of a gating circuit. Both AND gates and OR gates may be constructed by means of plugs with the diodes poled in the same direction, as will be further explained.

Advanced molding techniques may be utilized to produce the configuration of FIGURE 3b. Here, conducting strips are first welded or otherwise mechanically and electrically secured to the wire leads of diode 91. The actual spacing of the conducting strips 90 on the diode leads is determined according to position the strips will occupy on the plug body 92. Difierent positions are necessary for the different characters the plug will represent.

A slight curvature is shown in the plug of FIGURE 312. When the plug 92 is inserted into a cavity the elasticity of the plug material will produce forces at the points indicated by the arrows 93. Since the conducting strips 90 are somewhat above the surface of the plug, electrical contact pressure will be exerted between the conductors 90 of the plug and corresponding conductors 46 and 49 on the matrix frame of FIGURE 2. Other suitable techniques may be employed for establishing electrical contact and holding pressure to retain the plugs within the matrix frame.

In order to identify the plug so that they may be inserted in the proper cavities for building up a desired gating network for a specific purpose, the plugs may be arranged to be a little longer than the cavities into which they are to be inserted and slope two sides to meet at a peak 50'. This provides a sloping surface on which the letter or other character which identifies the plug may be printed. Thus, the plug shown in 3a or 3b is identified with the letter N which indicates that when it is placed in one of the cavities of a word bank, the electrical element contained in the plug will be connected between the conductor 46 on the inner wall of the cavity representing the letter N and the conducting rod 48 at the bottom of the cavity. If, in addition, the letter M is printed on the sloping surface opposite the N surface, the plug may be rotated 180 about its vertical axis and inserted into a matrix cavity containing 26 conductors with 13 conductors on each of the two opposite sides. Thus, when the letter M faces the user, the plug would furnish ran AND gate input for the letter M. Rotation of 180 would again show the letter N to the user and produce a letter N gate input. Adding this dual feature to the plugs will diminish 'by a factor of 2 the number of difierent plugs required for a particular matrix frame configuration. For example, only 13 plugs (A43, C- D, E-'F, etc.) are required to represent the 26 alphabetic characters. Only 5 plugs 1-2, 34, etc.) would be required to represent the numerical digits.

Also it was found to be convenient to provide a hole 51 through the triangular extension at the top of the plug by means of which the plug may be easily withdrawn from the cavity by inserting a suitable tool in the hole.

FIGURE 4 is a partial schematic view of the component layout of the gating circuits 28 and 29 of FIG- UR=E 1, as they appear in the matrix frame of FIGURE 2. The conductors 46, representing the letters A to -E, N and Z are considered to be attached to the first plate shown at the left of FIGURE 2. It will be understood that all of the other plates have similar conductors. A group of seven plugs are positioned one in the first cavity of each row forming the first code bank. As shown, these plugs represent the code word NTLEY. The farthest plug from the viewer is the one shown in FIGURE 3 with its conducting strip 53 in position to engage the conductor 46 which represents the letter N. The conductor 56 on that particular plug makes contact with the short conductor 49 for that cavity which in turn is connected to the rod 48 forming the common connector for that code bank. The diode 52 for that plug is shown connected between the contacts 53 and 56.

The next cavity contains a plug in which the conducting strip 53 on the sidethereof is positioned to contact with the conductor 46 on the inner wall of the second cavity representing the letter T, as shown by the black rectangle 63. The black rectangle 64 represents the conductor 56 of that plug which connects to the short conductor 49 for that cavity and thus to the common conducting rod 48. The diode 65 is the diode for that particular plug. I

Similarly, the next plug in the bank (the first cavity in the third row) has a conductor 66 positioned to engage the conductor 46 in the wall of that cavity representing the letter L, while the rectangle 67 is the lower conductor on that plug to complete the connection to the conducting rod 48.

The next plug in the first cavity of the fourth row connects with the conductor on the wall of that cavity representing the letter E by means of the conductor 68 and completes the connection at the bottom by means of the conductor 69. And the last plug for the code word in the first cavity of the fifth row connects with the conductor on the wall of its cavity representing the letter Y by means of the conductor 70 and completes the connection at the bottom by means of the conductor 71. Each plug contains a diode as indicated.

These finst five plugs form the AND gate 30 of FIG- URE 1 for the code word NTLEY, the output of this AND gate being the common connecting rod 48. The last two rows of cavities are the control banks and form the OR gating circuit 29 of FIGURE 1. One of the conductors 46 on the inner wall of the first cavity of the sixth row is selected for the output 39 for the OR gate 29. A plug similar to the others is provided with a conductor 73 to engage the output conductor 39 common to this row of cavities. A lower conductor 74 for that plug completes the connection in the usual manner with the rod 48. A diode 75 in this plug is the OR gate diode.

Power for the AND gate 30 is provided by means of the plug in the first cavity of the seventh row. This plug has an upper contact 76 and a lower contact 77. The upper contact 76 is positioned to make engagement with one of the conductors 46, indicated as 78, which is given a negative potential of 10 volts. The resistor 38 of FIG- URE 1 is contained in this plug and thus connects the output of the AND circuit 30, which represents the code word NTLEY, from the conductor 48 through the OR gate including the diode 75 to the output 39 of the OR gate.

The output 39 is shown in FIGURE 1 to be connected to ground through a resistor 40. This connection is made by means of a plug in the sixth cavity of the sixth row in the matrix. This plug contains the resistor 40 and a contact 79 which engages the output conductor 39. A contact 80 at the bottom connects the resistor to the sixth of the con-ducting rods 48. In order to provide the ground connection for the resistor 40, a plug is placed in the sixth cavity of the seventh row. This plug is provided with a contact 81 which engages one of the conductors 46 of that row, indicated at 82, which is given a ground potential. The plug is also provided with a diode 83 which has no useful function but permits the use of a standard type plug.

To recapitulate with respect to the schematic drawing of FIGURE 4, if it is desired to produce an output when the code word NTLE is received, plugs are placed in the first cavity of each of the code rows in the frame. The plug for the first row is arranged to have its contact 53 engage the conductor 46 of the first row which represents the letter N. The succeeding four plugs are arranged so that their contacts 63, 66, 68, and 70 engage the conductors 46 for the respective rows representing, respectively, the letters T, L, E, and Y. The first cavities in rows six and seven which are the control banks are also provided with plugs, the first of which in the sixth row contains a diode similar to the others and a contact 73 which engages the output conductor 39. The plug in the first cavity in the seventh row contains the resistor '38 which connects the rod '48, common to the first cavities of all the rows, with that conductor 78 in the last row of cavities which is connected to the negative voltage.

When any or all of the conductors representing the letters N, T, L, E, and Y of the respective five rows has or have a ground potential, current will flow from the conductor or conductors to the common bar 48 and through the resistor 38 to the negative voltage on the conductor 78 common to the last cavities of all the rows, thus making the rod 48 at essentially ground potential because of the drop in the resistor 38. No indication Will appear on the output conductor 39. If, however, all of the conductors representing the above letters are negative, the negative potential of the conductor 78 will appear on the rod 48 and current can then flow from ground on the conductor 8'2 of the seventh row of cavities, through the diode 83, to the rod 48 common to the number six cavities, and thence through the resist-or 40 in the plug in the number cavity of the sixth row, to the output conductor 39, and through the diode in the plug in the first cavi'ty of the sixth row, to the negative potential on the rod 48. The potential drop through the resistor 40 will produce a negative potential on the output conductor 39.

The AND gating circuit 30 of FIGURE 1 is thus provided by the first cavities in the first five rows, as has been explained. The additional AND gating circuits 31 and 32 of FIGURE 1 may be constructed by placing suitable plugs in the succeeding banks of five cavities, using the last two control banks to interconnect with the output through the OR gating circuit and to supply the ground and negative potential, as has been described for the first code word.

Attention is drawn to the fact that the diodes are poled the same in the plugs for the OR gates as they are for the AND gates. This makes it possible to reduce the number of diflferen tly constructed plugs and thus makes the matrix more flexible in producing different combinations of gating circuits.

FIGURE 2 has been shown with the frame broken away, but it will be evident that any number of cavities may be provided in the frame to meet any desired complexity of gating circuits. Also while there are five rows in the code banks for five element code words, it will be evident that the frame may be arranged to accommodate more or less elements in a code word by increasing or decreasing the number of rows of cavities. While conductors representing letters have been shown, additional conductors representing numerals or other characters may be added to increase the matrix flexibility. Variations of logic circuitry within the matrix are dependent upon the users discretion and imagination. If a positive power source were to be used, the poling of all diodes would be reversed.

The manner of making the electrical connections when the plug is inserted into a cavity, especially the connection at the bottom of the plug, may be varied, as desired, the arrangement shown being one convenient manner of making the connections. Also while diodes and resistors are shown incorporated in the plugs, other electrical components may be used to provide other kinds of circuits.

Other modifications may be made without departing from the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A variable electrical matrix comprising:

(a) a matrix frame of insulating material having a plurality of parallel, elongated cavities of uniform size and cross section extending thereinto and arranged in a plurality of rows to form a matrix of cavities; R

(b) a first plurality of conductor-s for each row of cavities, extending through said frame with said con- 'ductors arranged in spaced relation longitudinally of said cavities and aligned with the walls thereof; (c) a second plurality of conductors, equal in number to the number of cavities in a row and arranged trans- 5 verse to the conductors of said first plurality and spaced therefrom longitudinally of said cavities and each exposed to the interior surface of corresponding cavities of said rows;

(d) a plurality of elongated plugs having such size and cross section that they may be selectively inserted into said cavities;

(e) a first conducting element mounted on the side of each of said plugs, said conducting elements on different plugs being in different positions so as to engage difierent ones of said first plurality of conductors when said plugs are inserted in said matrix frame;

(f) a second conducting element on each of said plugs mounted in such position that when the plug is inserted in a cavity, said second conducting element will engage the conductor of said second plurality which is exposed to the interior of said cavity; and

(g) an electrical element contained within each plug and connected between the first and second conducting elements thereof;

(h) the plugs having a curvature to permit the plugs to be held in the elongated cavities by friction due to the resiliency of the plug material when the plugs are inserted in the cavities.

2. A component bearing plug comprising resilient material formed :to have a curved configuration in its longitudinal dimension, and component means secured to the plug whereby insertion of the plug in a cavity having substantially parallel sides distorts the plug so as to friction- 35 ally secure the plug in the cavity.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,215,898 11/1965 Perret et al 317-101 X 40 3,264,526 8/1966 Wiggerman 317101 ROBERT K. SCI-IA-EFER, Primary Examiner.

J. R. SCOTT, Assistant Examiner. 

